Bug 24845

Summary: very low sound on the earphone on ASUS ZenBook 3 Deluxe
Product: Mageia Reporter: Béat E <ed1>
Component: RPM PackagesAssignee: All Packagers <pkg-bugs>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact:
Severity: normal    
Priority: Normal CC: doktor5000, geiger.david68210, ghibomgx, lists.jjorge, lovaren, mageia, marja11, zen25000
Version: Cauldron   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Source RPM: pulseaudio CVE:
Status comment:
Attachments: output of analog-output.conf.common

Description Béat E 2019-05-20 14:46:17 CEST
Description of problem:
I use an ASUS ZenBook 3 Deluxe UX490UA. The sound on the earphones is much lower on Cauldron that on Mageia 6, too low for some files.

How reproducible:
I play a sound or video file with vlc and listen ot it via the built-in loudspeakers of my ASUS ZenBook 3 Deluxe which work properly. Then I plug my earphones into the earphone jack of the Zenbook. The sound on the earphone is very low. Some files are barely audible. On Mageia 6 on the same system with the same configuration (KDE desktop, same configuration files for vlc and KDE) the sound was much louder. I have to put vlc on the top volume and KDE volume control on the top volume (150%) too in order to hear something. And even then some sound file are barely audible. 

Steps to Reproduce:
1. play a sound or video file with vlc and listen to it via loudspeaker (on a ASUS ZenBook 3 Deluxe). This works fine.
2. plug the earphones into earphone output jack
3. listen to the music/video with the earphones
Comment 1 Marja Van Waes 2019-05-24 18:55:51 CEST
(In reply to Béat E from comment #0)
> Description of problem:
> I use an ASUS ZenBook 3 Deluxe UX490UA. The sound on the earphones is much
> lower on Cauldron that on Mageia 6, too low for some files.
> 
> How reproducible:
> I play a sound or video file with vlc and listen ot it via the built-in
> loudspeakers of my ASUS ZenBook 3 Deluxe which work properly. Then I plug my
> earphones into the earphone jack of the Zenbook. The sound on the earphone
> is very low. Some files are barely audible. On Mageia 6 on the same system
> with the same configuration (KDE desktop, same configuration files for vlc
> and KDE) the sound was much louder. I have to put vlc on the top volume and
> KDE volume control on the top volume (150%) too in order to hear something.
> And even then some sound file are barely audible. 
> 
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. play a sound or video file with vlc and listen to it via loudspeaker (on
> a ASUS ZenBook 3 Deluxe). This works fine.
> 2. plug the earphones into earphone output jack
> 3. listen to the music/video with the earphones

I don't know what can cause this, do you have the same problem with a different video or sound application, or only with VLC?
Do you have the same problem with a different Desktop Environment?


CC'ing the KDE and VLC maintainers and also doktor5000, who helped many users in the forums with sound issues.

CC: (none) => doktor5000, kde, marja11, shlomif
Source RPM: (none) => pulseaudio???
Keywords: (none) => NEEDINFO

Comment 2 Béat E 2019-05-24 21:55:14 CEST
The problem is not connected to VCL. The same happen with YouTube on Firerfox, Clementine and SMPlayer I have installed.
Comment 3 Béat E 2019-05-24 22:09:40 CEST
I have the same problem under IceWM and Xfc. This means that it may not be related to KDE. 

I used two different earphones. With both I have the mentioned problem. The loudspeaker sound has always been fine (much louder).
Comment 4 Marja Van Waes 2019-05-24 22:48:19 CEST
(In reply to Béat E from comment #2)
> The problem is not connected to VCL. The same happen with YouTube on
> Firerfox, Clementine and SMPlayer I have installed.

(In reply to Béat E from comment #3)
> I have the same problem under IceWM and Xfc. This means that it may not be
> related to KDE. 
> 
> I used two different earphones. With both I have the mentioned problem. The
> loudspeaker sound has always been fine (much louder).

Thanks for the feedback.
Assuming it is some default pulseaudio setting that has changed. 

Assigning to all packagers collectively, since the registered pulseaudio maintainer for is mostly unavailable.

Also CC'ing some committers and the maintainer.

Assignee: bugsquad => pkg-bugs
CC: kde, shlomif => geiger.david68210, ghibomgx, mageia, zen25000
Source RPM: pulseaudio??? => pulseaudio
Keywords: NEEDINFO => (none)

Comment 5 Kristoffer Grundström 2019-05-25 05:20:23 CEST
Attach a text file of some sort (.log or .txt doesn't matter) with the result from doing

cat /usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output.conf.common

Do that as root.

CC: (none) => hamnisdude

Comment 6 Béat E 2019-05-25 08:54:24 CEST
Created attachment 11026 [details]
output of analog-output.conf.common
Comment 7 Kristoffer Grundström 2019-05-26 00:53:27 CEST
(In reply to Béat E from comment #6)
> Created attachment 11026 [details]
> output of analog-output.conf.common

What happens if you edit that file with nano or similar text editor and change

[Element PCM]
switch = mute
volume = merge
override-map.1 = all
override-map.2 = all-left,all-right

into

[Element Master]
switch = mute
volume = ignore


[Element PCM]
switch = mute
volume = merge
override-map.1 = all
override-map.2 = all-left,all-right


[Element LFE]
switch = mute
volume = ignore

?

Save the changes and reboot.

Revert the changes if that doesn't help.
Comment 8 Kristoffer Grundström 2019-05-26 00:56:05 CEST
(In reply to Kristoffer Grundström from comment #7)
> (In reply to Béat E from comment #6)
> > Created attachment 11026 [details]
> > output of analog-output.conf.common
> 
> What happens if you edit that file with nano or similar text editor and
> change
> 
> [Element PCM]
> switch = mute
> volume = merge
> override-map.1 = all
> override-map.2 = all-left,all-right
> 
> into
> 
> [Element Master]
> switch = mute
> volume = ignore
> 
> 
> [Element PCM]
> switch = mute
> volume = merge
> override-map.1 = all
> override-map.2 = all-left,all-right
> 
> 
> [Element LFE]
> switch = mute
> volume = ignore
> 
> ?
> 
> Save the changes and reboot.
> 
> Revert the changes if that doesn't help.

If you don't want to reboot the computer you can just do

pulseaudio -k
Comment 9 Béat E 2019-05-26 10:23:04 CEST
I changed the file, but nothing changed. The loudspeaker sound is good, but the earphone sound is still barely audible and furthermore of bad quality (it was of bad quality before, but I forgot to mention it in my bug report).
Comment 10 Barry Jackson 2019-05-28 13:06:55 CEST
Your first port of call should be pavucontrol (pulseaudio volume control under sound in the main menu) to check settings.
Comment 11 Béat E 2019-05-29 09:49:50 CEST
I did this the sound for the earphones is at the maximum of 153%. I don't see anything I could change there. I can put the loudspeaker at 40% and still hear the sound well. 
The problem is the output for earphones. I recently tested Manajaro on this notebook and the volume of both, loudspeaker and earphones, were very good and on the same level.
Comment 12 José Jorge 2019-05-29 10:33:53 CEST
(In reply to Béat E from comment #11)
> The problem is the output for earphones. I recently tested Manajaro on this
> notebook and the volume of both, loudspeaker and earphones, were very good
> and on the same level.

Good to know. Which kernel version did you use in  Manjaro? Probably an ALSA HD audio workaround we have for another ASUS is being a false positive in your hardware.

CC: (none) => lists.jjorge

Comment 13 Béat E 2019-05-29 11:58:17 CEST
The kernel version is 4.19.45-1-MANJARO. With a volume of 40% I have a very good sound on my earphones there.
Comment 14 José Jorge 2019-05-29 12:06:29 CEST
(In reply to Béat E from comment #13)
> The kernel version is 4.19.45-1-MANJARO. With a volume of 40% I have a very
> good sound on my earphones there.

Mageia 6 has 4.14 kernel, so it seems this is a regression in latest upstream kernel. Can you try to access directly hardware mixers and change them :

alsamixer -c 0
Comment 15 Béat E 2019-05-29 12:34:54 CEST
In Alsamixer the Master was 0. This affected the sound of the headphones, but not the one of the speaker. I set the Master to around 50 and the sound volume on my earphones is fine since. There was no change in volume for the loudspeakers when I did that. For me the problem is solved now. Thanks a lot. The bug can be closed.
Comment 16 José Jorge 2019-05-29 14:25:09 CEST
(In reply to Béat E from comment #15)
> For me the problem is solved now. The bug can be closed.

Yes, but we need this to be solved for every user. The question seems to be now why pulseaudio doesn't raise the master volume?

I've tried with my laptop, and could reproduce something similar : it is not in master channel, but "speaker" one :
- with MGA6 it is muted on earphones plugin, but I can hear in earphones
- with MGA7 it is muted on earphones plugin, and I can't hear in earphones with raising it and unmuting.

I'll try with other systems, as it could be a release blocker bug if no user get sound in it's earphones!.
Comment 17 Giuseppe Ghibò 2019-05-29 15:21:54 CEST
As stated Jorge, probably some quirks was added in upstream 5.1.x series, that changed volume settings. Does the same happens on a LIVE mageia 7 RC with default audio? BTW, in core/updates_testing, there is the series of kernels still uptodate, for 4.19.46 (419), 4.20.17 (420), 5.0.19 (500) and 5.1.5 (510) series. They are aimed for low latency, but the audio infrastructure should be the same of the stock. You can try them to find which one started to show the problem. Also there is kernel-linus-5.1.5 which can be used for the same purpose.